Why would cost-benefit analyses only work for a “small individualistic agent”? Cost-effectiveness analyses are often done at a national and multi-national level, so they can encompass the welfare of many agents.
You don’t ask what is “the cost” of war, because as romans said “non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro”. Once you have loss freedom, how will you keep the gold? This is strategic thinking. The dominant issue is incentives and reactions. The reaction to pacifism is perhaps not “more killing” but for sure more “empire building”. Why not? It is for free!
“The way I see it, pacifism is not about being against all wars.”
Caplan is against all political coordination! Wars are only a particular case.
On the other hand, Russia is a classic imperialist state and it wants to control as much as possible. This is a quite a natural thing for small oligarchies. If you invade and do not grant political rigths to the invaded, where is the limit? A drive for unlimited conquest is the natural state of affairs; what make democratic states less prone to it, is that when you get the place, you also get the voters: the fiscal assets are earmarked with political liabilities. In fact, democracies can be quite imperialistic, if conquest does not imply voting rigths...
Why would cost-benefit analyses only work for a “small individualistic agent”? Cost-effectiveness analyses are often done at a national and multi-national level, so they can encompass the welfare of many agents.
You don’t ask what is “the cost” of war, because as romans said “non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro”. Once you have loss freedom, how will you keep the gold? This is strategic thinking. The dominant issue is incentives and reactions. The reaction to pacifism is perhaps not “more killing” but for sure more “empire building”. Why not? It is for free!
“The way I see it, pacifism is not about being against all wars.”
Caplan is against all political coordination! Wars are only a particular case.
On the other hand, Russia is a classic imperialist state and it wants to control as much as possible. This is a quite a natural thing for small oligarchies. If you invade and do not grant political rigths to the invaded, where is the limit? A drive for unlimited conquest is the natural state of affairs; what make democratic states less prone to it, is that when you get the place, you also get the voters: the fiscal assets are earmarked with political liabilities. In fact, democracies can be quite imperialistic, if conquest does not imply voting rigths...